Members of the U.S. International Trade Commission on Tuesday made three different recommendations for restricting solar cell and panel imports on Tuesday, giving President Donald Trump a range of choices to address injury to domestic producers. The recommendations range from an immediate 35 percent tariff on all imported panels to a four-year quota system that allows the import of up to 8.9 gigawatts of solar cells and modules in the first year. The president’s ultimate decision could have a major impact on the price of U.S. power generated by the sun. Both supporters and critics of import curbs on solar products were disappointed by the proposals, which were unveiled at a public meeting in Washington. Trade remedies were requested in a petition earlier this year by two small U.S. manufacturers that said they were unable to compete with cheap panels made overseas, mainly in Asia. The companies, Suniva Inc and the U.S. arm of Germany’s SolarWorld AG, said Tuesday’s recommendations did not go far enough to protect domestic producers. “The ITC’s remedy simply will not fix the problem the ITC itself identified,” Suniva said in a statement. The company, which is majority owned by Hong Kong-based Shunfeng International Clean Energy, filed the rare Section 201 petition nine days after seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April. It had sought a minimum price on panels of 74 cents a watt, nearly double their current cost. One analyst said the stiffest remedy recommended, a 35 percent tariff on solar panels, would add …
California Wildfire Insurance Claims Top $3.3B
Property damage claims from a series of deadly October wildfires now exceed $3.3 billion, California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said Tuesday. The figure represented claims for homes and businesses insured by 15 companies and was more than triple the previous estimate of $1 billion. Jones said the number would continue to rise as more claims were reported. The amount of claims now reported means that the fires caused more damage than California’s 1991 Oakland Hills fire, which was previously the state’s costliest, with $2.7 billion in damage in 2015 dollars, according to the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America. Forty-three people were killed in the October blazes that tore through Northern California, including the state’s renowned winemaking regions in Napa and Sonoma counties. They destroyed at least 8,900 buildings as more than 100,000 people were forced to evacuate. It was the deadliest series of fires in California history. Several dozen buildings were also damaged or destroyed in fires in Southern California’s Orange County. “Behind each and every one of these claims … are ordinary people, Californians who lost their homes, lost their vehicles, in some cases whose family members lost their lives,” said Jones, a Democrat who is running for attorney general. Jones said there were just over 10,000 claims for partial home losses, more than 4,700 total losses and about 700 for business property. There were 3,200 claims for damaged or destroyed personal vehicles, 91 for commercial vehicles, 153 for farm equipment and 111 for watercraft. The figures do …
Pruitt to Put New Members on EPA Science Panels
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday he intends to replace the outside experts that advise him on science and public health issues with new board members holding more diverse views. In announcing the changes, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt suggested many previously appointed to the panels were potentially biased because they had received federal research grants. The 22 boards advise EPA on a wide range of issues, including drinking water standards and pesticide safety. “Whatever science comes out of EPA shouldn’t be political science,” said Pruitt, a Republican lawyer who previously served as the attorney general of Oklahoma. “From this day forward, EPA advisory committee members will be financially independent from the agency.” Pruitt has expressed skepticism about the consensus of climate scientists that man-made carbon emissions are the primary cause of global warming. He also overruled experts that had recommended pulling a top-selling pesticide from the market after peer-reviewed studies showed it damaged children’s brains. Pruitt said he will name new leadership and members to three key EPA advisory boards soon — the Science Advisory Board, Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, and the Board of Scientific Counselors. It was not clear from the EPA’s media release if all current board members serving out their appointed terms were immediately dismissed. EPA’s press office did not respond to messages seeking clarification on Tuesday. As part of his directive, Pruitt said he will bar appointees who currently in receipt of EPA grants or who …
Britain Accelerates Brexit Plans; Talks Also to Speed Up
Britain is accelerating preparations for “all eventualities” when it leaves the European Union, but both sides are hopeful an agreement on stepping up talks to unravel more than 40 years of partnership will be sealed soon. With only 17 months remaining until Britain’s expected departure, the slow pace of talks has increased the possibility that London will leave without a deal, alarming business leaders who say time is running out for them to make investment decisions. British and EU negotiators met in Brussels on Tuesday to try to agree a schedule for further divorce talks, with an initial proposal from the bloc to hold three more rounds before the end of the year not winning instant approval from London. The pressure has spurred the British government to step up its Brexit plans, employing thousands more workers and spending millions to make sure customs posts, laws and systems work on day one of Brexit, even without a deal on a future relationship. At a meeting with her ministers Tuesday, Prime Minister Theresa May was updated on plans for the tax and customs authority to add 3,000 to 5,000 workers next year and for spending of 500 million pounds ($660.45 million) for Brexit. Domestic preparations “Alongside the negotiations in Brussels, it is crucial that we are putting our own domestic preparations in place so that we are ready at the point that we leave the EU,” May’s spokesman told reporters. “The preparatory work has seen a significant acceleration in recent months. Departments …
Mexico GDP Shrinks Amid NAFTA Uncertainty, Disasters
Mexico announced Tuesday that its economy shrank 0.2 percent in the third quarter compared with the previous period amid uncertainty related to renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement and local slowdowns caused by natural disasters. Alfredo Coutino, Latin America director at Moody’s Analytics, said the contraction came after Mexico posted GDP gains of 0.7 percent and 0.6 percent in the first two quarters and confirms an expected deceleration in the second half of 2017. “Investment decisions were affected by uncertainty over the possibility that NAFTA negotiations would break off,” Coutino wrote in a report. He added that monetary tightening and high inflation “restrained consumption,” while “activity was partially interrupted in cities affected by the two earthquakes in September and the hurricanes that struck the southern part of the country.” The government’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography reported the contraction and said that GDP for the third quarter was 1.7 percent higher than in the same period last year. Coutino forecast that Mexico’s economy will grow about 1 percent in the fourth quarter and hit about 1.8 percent on the year, down from 2017 and short of target. …
Slow Flow of Human Migration May Have Doomed Neanderthals
What killed off the Neanderthals? It’s a big debate, and now a study says that no matter what the answer, they were doomed anyway. Our close evolutionary cousins enjoyed a long run in Europe and Asia, but they disappeared about 40,000 years ago after modern humans showed up from Africa. The search for an explanation has produced many theories including climate change, epidemics, or inability to compete with the modern humans, who may have had some mental or cultural edge. The new study isn’t intended to argue against those factors, but just to show that they’re not needed to explain the extinction, says Oren Kolodny of Stanford University. He and colleague Marcus Feldman present their approach in a paper released Tuesday by the journal Nature Communications. They based their conclusion on a computer simulation that represented small bands of Neanderthals and modern humans in Europe and Asia. These local populations were randomly chosen to go extinct, and then be replaced by another randomly chosen population, with no regard for whether it represented the same species. Neither species was assumed to have any inherent advantage, but there was one crucial difference: Unlike the Neanderthals, the modern humans were supplemented by reinforcements coming in from Africa. It wasn’t a huge wave, but rather “a tiny, tiny trickle of small bands,” Kolodny said. Still, that was enough to tip the balance against the Neanderthals. They generally went extinct when the simulation was run more than …
Exxon Promises Air Pollution Controls in Settlement with US Government
ExxonMobil has promised to upgrade pollution controls at eight of its manufacturing facilities along the U.S. Gulf Coast under an agreement it reached with federal authorities. The petrochemical giant will spend about $300 million to install pollution controls at the plants to settle allegations that it violated U.S. environmental law by failing to properly monitor industrial flares at its petrochemical plants, resulting in illegal air pollution. The U.S. Justice Department, in a statement, said the Exxon facilities — located in Louisiana and Texas — will operate new air pollution control and monitoring technology to reduce the harmful emissions. “Once fully implemented, the pollution controls required by the settlement are estimated to reduce harmful air emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by more than 7,000 tons per year,” the DOJ said in a statement. “The settlement is also expected to reduce toxic air pollutants, including benzene, by more than 1,500 tons per year.” The Justice Department describes VOCs as key components in the formation of smog, which can irritate lungs and inflame respiratory issues like asthma. Chronic exposure can lead to leukemia and adverse reproductive effects in women, the DOJ said. Exxon also will be required to spend $1 million on a project to plant trees in Baytown, Texas, and purchase a $1.5 million mobile air quality monitoring vehicle for use by Louisiana’s environmental protection agency. …
Water Up! Re-Think Your Drink
The suburbs of Washington are the setting for a pilot project to promote healthier eating habits, a partnership between leaders of the Latino community there and researchers at George Washington University. The “Water up Project” encourages the community to drink more water and reduce their consumption of sugary beverages. Faiza Elmasry reports. Faith Lapidus narrates. …
Kushner Partner All But Kills Plan for Fifth Ave Skyscraper
The co-owner of a Fifth Avenue skyscraper controlled by the family of Jared Kushner says demolishing the tower to build luxury apartments is not practical and the building will likely remain as offices. Vornado Realty Trust CEO Steven Roth told investors on Tuesday that the Kushner family’s plan to raise billions from investors to rebuild the tower is “not feasible.” He added that “it’s likely that the building will revert to an office building.” The project drew criticism after media reports that the Kushner Cos. was negotiating with a Chinese insurer with ties to the ruling Communist Party, among other big foreign investors. Critics say such deals would raise conflicts of interest issues with Jared Kushner serving in the White House as an adviser to his father-in-law, President Donald Trump. …
Україна піднялася на 4 позиції в рейтингу Світового банку Doing Business
Україна поліпшила свої позиції в рейтингу легкості ведення бізнесу за версією Світового банку Doing Business на чотири позиції і піднялася на 76-е місце із загалом 190. Щорічний рейтинг був оприлюднений 31 жовтня. Україна опинилася між Бутаном (75-е) і Киргизстаном (77-е місце). За даними експертів Світового банку, Україна продемонструвала зростання, зокрема, за такими пунктами: «отримання дозволів на будівництво», «захист міноритарних інвесторів» і «сплата податків». Загалом рейтинг Світового банку складається за 10 критеріями. Минулого року Україна посіла 80-е місце в рейтингу, піднявшись на три позиції порівняно з попереднім роком. Очолюють нинішній рейтинг Нова Зеландія, Сінгапур, Данія, на останніх місцях – Венесуела, Еритрея, Сомалі. Росія в нинішньому рейтингу піднялася на 35-у позицію. Мінекономрозвитку раніше прогнозувало, що Україна може піднятися в рейтингу легкості ведення бізнесу від Світового банку Doing Business 2018 на 10 позицій – до 70-го місця, що потенційно може приносити до країни щороку додатково мільярд доларів інвестицій. Раніше про те, що Україна піднялась у рейтингу Doing Business, заявляв президент Петро Порошенко. …
UN Environment Report Urges Revived Effort to Cut Emissions
The U.N.’s environment program said Tuesday countries and industries need to do more to meet targets to trim emissions of greenhouse gases that experts say are contributing to global warming. In its latest “Emissions Gap” report issued ahead of an important climate conference in Germany next week, the program takes aim at coal-fired electricity plants being built in developing economies and says investment in renewable energies will pay for itself — and even make money – over the long term. Tuesday’s report comes as U.N. officials are making a renewed push to maintain momentum generated by the Paris climate accord of 2015. It aims to cap global temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius (Fahrenheit) by the year 2100 compared to average world temperatures at the start of the industrial era. “The Paris agreement boosted climate action, but momentum is clearly faltering,” said Edgar Gutierrez-Espeleta, Costa Rica’s environment minister who heads the 2017 UN Environment Assembly. “We face a stark choice: up our ambition, or suffer the consequences.” A new round of U.N. climate talks known as COP 23 starts in Bonn, Germany, on Monday, when countries will take stock of their achievements and prepare more ambitious national goals. In a summary of the report, UNEP says that current trends suggest that even if current national commitments are met, a temperature increase of 3-degrees Celsius by the end of the century is “very likely — meaning that governments need to deliver much stronger pledges when they are …
Eurozone Recovery Helps Unemployment Fall to Near 9-Year Low
Official figures show that the robust economic recovery across the 19-country eurozone persisted during the third quarter, helping unemployment fall to a near 9-year low. Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, said Tuesday that the eurozone economy grew by 0.6 percent during the July to September period. Though that’s slightly down on the stellar 0.7 percent tick recorded in the second quarter, it’s modestly higher than expectations for a 0.5 percent rise. Separately, Eurostat said unemployment fell to 8.9 percent in September from 9.0 percent the previous month. That’s the lowest rate since January 2009. Elsewhere, Eurostat said annual inflation in the eurozone dipped to 1.4 percent in October from 1.5 percent as the core rate, which strips out volatile items, surprisingly fell to 0.9 percent from 1.1 percent. …
Uber Scrambles to Head Off Brazil Bill Regulating Ride Software
Hundreds of drivers for the internet based ride-hailing firm Uber drove through Brazil’s largest cities on Monday to protest legislation that would turn them into regular taxi drivers subject to the same local licensing and taxation rules. The chief executive of Uber Technologies Inc, Dara Khosrowshahi, arrived in Brazil to lobby against the bill that is due to be voted on by the Senate on Tuesday and which threatens the company’s business in a fast-growing foreign market. Brazil is Uber’s third-largest market, with 17 million users, and the city of Sao Paulo sees more trips on the ride-hailing service than any other city in the world, ahead of New York and Mexico City, according to the company. A spokesman for the company said the application as it exists could not operate under the new rules, including the use of a taxi license plate on cars owned by Uber drivers. “The business model we have today would not longer be viable,” Uber’s executive spokesman in Brazil Fabio Sabba told Reuters. Uber is already battling to keep operating in London after the city’s transport regulator deemed it unfit to run a taxi service and refused to renew its license. Police said 800 Uber drivers drove through the center of Brazil’s capital Brasilia to protest the bill that many say will put them out of business. Similar protests in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro snarled downtown traffic. Uber did not organize the drivers’ protests but alerted authorities that they would happen. “The …
Want to Know When Ebola Will Strike Next? Look to the Forest
Ebola outbreaks tend to occur two years after trees have been cut down or forests cleared in West and Central Africa, researchers said on Monday, suggesting that deforestation data could be used to predict outbreaks of the deadly disease. A study published in online journal Scientific Reports was the first to find a time correlation between deforestation and the onset of Ebola, caused by a virus which humans catch from infected wild animals that can then be transmitted between humans through direct contact. Ebola ravaged Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2014-2016, killing around 11,300 people in the world’s worst recorded outbreak, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). There have been dozens of smaller outbreaks since the disease was discovered in 1976, typically in remote villages near tropical rainforests in West and Central Africa, WHO said. By analyzing 27 outbreak sites for the period 2001-2014, researchers found that the Ebola was significantly more likely to emerge in areas with surrounding forest loss, typically two years after the damage was done. Deforestation likely pushes infected wild animals into human areas, but how exactly this works – and why it takes two years – is not yet known, said John Fa, a professor at Manchester Metropolitan University and one of the authors of the report. “The next step is to pinpoint areas that were deforested two years ago,” Fa told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “If we know where they will occur, we might be able to prevent future outbreaks.” Fa hopes …
At 86, Senior Olympics Medalist has Been Breast Cancer-Free for 30 Years
Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer facing women, worldwide. During the last few decades, new treatments and early detection have improved the survival odds. But an 86 year-old Maryland woman credits her recovery to her family and to her love of favorite sport. As Breast Cancer Awareness month in the US draws to a close, VOA’s Natalia Leonova brings us Rita Eisenberg’s story. …
A Community Experiment Promoting Heathier Habits to Reduce Obesity Among Latinos
The suburbs of Washington are the setting for a pilot project to promote healthier eating habits, a partnership between leaders of the Latino community there and researchers at George Washington University. The “Water up Project” encourages the community to drink more water and reduce their consumption of sugary beverages. Faiza Elmasry reports. Faith Lapidus narrates. …
Argentina’s Macri Vows to Pursue Tax, Labor, Pension Reforms
Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri vowed to press ahead with reforms to the country’s tax, labor and retirement systems in a speech on Monday, a week after his “Let’s Change” coalition swept to victory at the polls in midterm elections. The government will present a tax reform proposal this Tuesday or Wednesday, and an amnesty plan for companies that hired workers informally in the coming days, Macri said. He added that the government would convene a commission to propose changes to the retirement system in coming weeks. The speech marked a roadmap for the second half of Macri’s four-year term, as he seeks to implement business-friendly reforms to attract investors who avoided the country during more than a decade of populist rule. “We need lower taxes, more public works, and all this we need to achieve with fiscal balance,” Macri told a gathering of lawmakers, governors, union leaders, judges and others. Investors have been encouraged by the reforms Macri has implemented since taking office in December 2015, including lifting foreign exchange controls, settling with holdout creditors, and lowering export taxes. But significant investment has not arrived. Companies have demanded lower costs, while credit agencies are concerned about a deep fiscal deficit. Macri’s coalition swept the five most populous areas in midterm elections, giving him a broader mandate to pass reforms, though it still lacks majorities in both chambers of Congress. Macri said his government had reduced the country’s tax burden, and wanted to make the system “simpler, clearer, and fairer.” He …
SpaceX Racks Up Another Rocket Launch, Its 16th This Year
SpaceX has racked up another rocket launch, its 16th this year. That’s double last year’s count, and 2017 still has two months remaining. The unmanned Falcon rocket blasted off Monday afternoon from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, hoisting a communications satellite for the South Korean company KT SAT. This newest Koreasat will replace a failed satellite launched in 2006, and serve both Asia and the Middle East. Once separated, the 15-story first-stage booster flew to a floating platform in the Atlantic and landed upright. The TV link of the touchdown was lost. But SpaceX confirmed success despite the choppy seas and some flames shooting from the landed booster. The fire went out. “A little toasty, but stage one is certainly still intact,” said the launch commentator from company headquarters in Hawthorne, California. SpaceX expects to reuse the booster to save time and money. Other rocket makers ditch the boosters at sea following orbital missions. The company has launched almost every month this year — a personal record — flying Falcons from both U.S. coasts. …
Trump Expected to Nominate Powell for Fed Chair
U.S. President is expected to nominate Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell as the next chairman of the central bank, senior administration officials said Monday. Powell is a Republican centrist who appears inclined to continue the Fed’s strategy of gradual interest rate hikes. But officials say Trump hasn’t made up his mind and could change it. Powell would represent a middle-ground pick for Trump, who is also considering current Democratic Fed Chair Janet Yellen as well as Stanford University economist John Taylor and former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh. Powell could, however, relax some of the stricter financial rules that were enacted after the 2008 financial crisis. Trump has complained that those rules have been too restrictive. The decision over the Fed’s next leader is overshadowing this week’s meeting of the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting. Trump said Friday he has “someone very specific in mind” for the Fed. “It will be a person who, hopefully, will do a fantastic job,” Trump said in a short video message posted on Instagram and Twitter. Many conservative members of Congress had been pushing Trump to select Taylor, rather than Powell, for Fed chairman. Taylor, one of the country’s leading academics in the area of Fed policy, would likely embrace a more “hawkish” approach — more inclined to raise rates to fight inflation than to keep rates low to support the job market. Taylor is the author of a widely cited policy rule that provides a mathematical formula for guiding rate decisions. By one version of …
Blockchain Technology Could Unblock Southeast Asia
Imagine you could swipe your phone over a piece of fish in the supermarket and instantly see secure records of its entire path through the supply chain, from the technique used by the fisherman who caught it in Indonesia to when it was shipped and how it was processed at a factory in your home country — all at the tap of a smartphone. Trial projects such as that one are testing the potential of Blockchain technology to bring transparency to all sorts of notoriously inefficient or shadowy industries in Southeast Asia. Blockchain, the technology that powers bitcoin, is an essentially unchangeable form of bookkeeping. It creates cryptographically chained signatures between blocks of information that are authenticated by users over a peer-to-peer distributed ledger — a public record that can be applied to any type of bookkeeping, not just cryptocurrencies. “It removes the requirement for a centralized authority, and in a lot of the products that it’s being launched in, this centralized authority tends to be the government,” said Alisa DiCaprio, head of research at R3 — an enterprise banking software firm that uses distributed ledger technology. In a region where the most important records — identity and ownership for instance — are often subjected to little or no external oversight, blockchain offers enormous potential benefits. Erin Murphy, Founder and Principal of Inle Advisory Group, a Myanmar and emerging business advisory firm, said major Asian business hubs are looking to blockchain to clean up and simplify transactions. “Ideally, we would …
WMO: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Highest in 800,000 Years
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reports greenhouse gas emissions in Earth’s atmosphere have reached the highest level ever in 800,000 years. The figure was made public at the launch in Geneva of the WMO’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin. The report was released in advance of next week’s U.N. climate change negotiations in Bonn, Germany. It is meant as a wake-up call to nations that time is running out to take the necessary actions to curb global warning. The WMO reports CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere surged at record-breaking speed last year to historic highs. The WMO says CO2 levels are now 145 percent higher than pre-industrial levels. It warns this has the potential to change the climate systems in unprecedented and disastrous ways. WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas says this is already occurring. He told VOA scientists have been able to track the variability of carbon dioxide concentrations thousands of years back. “We have far exceeded this natural variability that took place in the past and we are giving extra energy for our planet. We have already started seeing a growing amount of natural disasters related to weather. And, for example, the economic losses related to these disasters, they have tripled since the 80s. So, that is a consequence of climate change,” Taalas said. The report finds CO2 contributes more than 60 percent to the heating of the planet and that human activity and natural climate variability are behind the substantial increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. Taalas warned temperature …
Sounds of Predators Let Baboons Know There’s No Free Lunch
Once they find them, wild animals tend to stick around human neighborhoods. That’s because of the free food buffet we tend to leave lying around, in our trash and gardens. Then, it’s nearly impossible to get rid of the unwanted guests, short of killing them. That was the problem with Baboons in one South African neighborhood, until recently. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …
India’s New Afghan Trade Route Via Iran, Bypasses Pakistan
Opening a new trade route to Afghanistan that bypasses Pakistan, India has dispatched its first consignment of wheat to the war torn country via the Iranian port of Chabahar. The strategic sea route is a significant step in bolstering trade with Kabul that has been hampered because rival Pakistan does not allow India to transport goods to Afghanistan through its territory. After the shipment was seen off by Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Afghan counterpart Salahuddin Rabbani via a joint video conference Sunday, the Indian government called it a “landmark moment.” In the coming months, six more consignments of wheat totaling 1.1. million tons will be sent from India’s western port of Kandla to Chabahar. From the Iranian port it will be taken by road to Kabul. The shipment comes days after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, on a visit to New Delhi, allayed concerns that the Trump administration’s tough stand on Iran could pose a fresh stumbling block to India’s plans to develop the strategic Iranian port as a regional transit hub. Easier connectivity to Afghanistan is key for India to step up its economic engagement with Kabul, which Washington has called for as part of its new policy to stabilize the war torn country. And Chabahar port, in which India is investing $500 million to build new terminals, cargo berths and connecting road and rail lines, is the centerpiece of the strategy to improve linkages not just with Afghanistan, but also to resource-rich Central Asian …
Мінфін: держборг України у вересні зріс на 0,6% – до 77 мільярдів доларів США
Загальний державний і гарантований державою борг України у вересні 2017 року зріс на 0,47 мільярда доларів (на 0,62 %) – до 77,03 мільярдів доларів США. Про це свідчать статистичні дані, оприлюднені Міністерством фінансів. У гривневому еквіваленті державний борг за цей період зріс на 84,66 мільярда гривень – до 2,043 трильйона гривень. За даними Мінфіну, з початку року – за січень-вересень – державний і гарантований державою борг зріс на 8,5% у доларовому еквіваленті, на 5,85% – у гривневому еквіваленті. Станом на 30 вересня гарантований державою борг становив 12 мільярдів доларів (318,31 мільярда гривень). Згідно з Бюджетний кодексом, державний борг – загальна сума боргових зобов’язань держави з повернення отриманих та непогашених кредитів (позик), що виникають внаслідок державного запозичення. Кабінет міністрів вніс до парламенту проект закону про держбюджет 15 вересня – в останній день, коли згідно з Бюджетним кодексом, мав це зробити. Документ, зокрема, передбачає доходи бюджету на наступний рік у сумі понад 877 мільярдів гривень, видатки – більш ніж 948 мільярдів гривень. Згідно із розрахунками загальний обсяг державного боргу, обрахований у національній валюті, у 2018 складе 1,9 трильйона гривень. …